Already subsequent yr, lithium mining was to start out within the north of Bohemia close to Cínovce. As a substitute, nevertheless, comfortable metallic could as soon as once more turn out to be a pre-election matter.
Initially, ČEZ was imagined to decide on mining final yr, however that didn’t occur. As a substitute, the vitality big saved shifting the deadline, and it was imagined to be clearer this summer time.
Nevertheless, as Forbes discovered, the choice on mining is being postponed once more – primarily on account of a change in location for the processing plant, which is to be situated in Újezdeček close to Teplice, in shut proximity to the Prunéřov lignite energy plant. And it’s subsequently essential to revise the ultimate feasibility examine, which is able to determine on the profitability of mining.
“Because of the change of location, it will likely be essential to revise the ultimate feasibility examine, for which we are going to want many months,” says Roman Gazdík from the ČEZ group, which controls 51 p.c of the corporate Geomet, which owns an exploration license for the mining of lithium from Tinovec.
“On the similar time, the mission must progress inside the framework of the allow procedures, for instance updating the ideas of territorial improvement,” he added, with out additional particulars, when the choice on mining may very well be made.
Nevertheless, the deadline fell on the June normal assembly of ČEZ. “On the normal assembly, it was introduced that CEZ’s resolution is being postponed till the center of 2025,” ČEZ minority shareholder Michal Šnobr mentioned on the X social community.
It’s subsequently apparent that the beginning of mining is not going to be in time in 2025. And as a substitute of taking footage subsequent to the primary truck with rock leaving the Cínové mine, the politicians will relatively argue within the run-up to the elections whether or not lithium mining within the Czech Republic is even worthwhile and whether or not it is sensible to enter it.
That is precisely what the talked about – and once more revised – feasibility examine ought to determine. Query marks additionally hold over the financial viability of mining because of the must construct a brand new processing chemical plant the place lithium could be extracted from the mined tailings. A blind spot can also be the precise technique that will obtain the lithium usable for the manufacturing of batteries for electrical vehicles from the mineral cinvaldite.
About three to 4 p.c of the world’s identified lithium reserves are situated in Cínovec, and as much as two million tons of rock may very well be mined right here yearly. Probably the most heated debates about mining happened on the flip of the last decade, when the value of lithium was hovering. On the flip of 2022 and 2023, nevertheless, it started to say no sharply.
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Different events in acquiring lithium within the Czech Republic have been ready for the outcomes of the feasibility examine for years, together with the Cínovecká landfill from billionaire Karel Janeček’s RSJ group. She needs to overload the lithic sands within the north.
Geomet, owned 51 p.c by ČEZ and 49 p.c by the Australian firm European Metallic Holding, nonetheless through the years began preparations for mining close to Cínovce and commenced discussing it with the municipalities within the neighborhood, the place a processing plant was additionally to be constructed on the Dukla brownfield.
Even after the protests of the inhabitants of the villages, who’re afraid of the numerous damaging results of mining on their lives, it can most likely be constructed on CEZ land subsequent to the Prunéřov energy plant fifty kilometers away, the place one coal block is shut down and the place the rock must be introduced by rail.
Nevertheless, a yr in the past, i.e. even earlier than the proposal to alter the situation of the plant, Geomet purchased land in Dukla value virtually a billion crowns with the intention of constructing a processing plant there.
“Dukla was a great possibility for us as a result of it’s an industrial zone close to the mine. Now we have subsequently ready all of the paperwork for the allowing processes exactly for the idea of the development of the plant in Dukla. For that function, it was essential to safe land in time, which is a standard process,” states ČEZ spokesman Roman Gazdík.
When requested by Forbes whether or not the funding will now go to waste, he solutions that Geomet, with one exception, didn’t purchase the land, however contractually secured the choice and paid the reservation charge.
“The value for the reservation corresponded to the standard value for such a big industrial zone. We nonetheless depend on Dukla as a station for transporting materials to the plant in Prunéřov, so we are going to use the land,” he concludes.
